


Human Interest

by Meddow



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-03
Updated: 2007-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-08 18:02:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meddow/pseuds/Meddow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah takes an unwanted assignment and the Doctor along with her, the Doctor tries out a new Harry and all hell breaks loose at the Flydale North Annual Show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human Interest

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for it not being betaed.

"No, Brigadier…Yes…No…Carmeliun Four…Yes…Yes, he'll be back soon…No, I'm sure he hasn't left me behind…No...Alright…Goodbye Brigadier."

"Really, this is beyond childish, Doctor, this is infantile," Sarah said as she put the phone down. She would have glared at him, but the TARDIS was in the way and taking up most of the room in her already tiny lounge, making getting from the front door to the kitchen a matter of manoeuvring herself over the top of the furniture and hoping not to break her neck on one of the books and papers lying on the floor. They had once been neatly stacked, but the TARDIS dematerialising in a small space had caused something of a minor tornado.

"You can't hide from UNIT forever," she added as she clambered over her settee.

"Have you ever had to do your paperwork in triplicate? I suspect half this country's defence budget is spent on paper, and the other half's spent paying the Brigadier to harass me," the Doctor replied as he flicked through her battered old copy of _Day of the Triffids_, his legs slung over the arm of a chair. "You know what this reminds me of…" he began.

"I know," she replied, knowing for a fact that the Doctor had never once completed his paper work, never mind in triplicate. Sarah had been wondering for a while if the Ministry had noticed that the Doctor had at least six different signatures and a varying vocabulary and writing style. Noticing a copy of _Frankenstein_ nearby, Sarah hurled it at him. "You need to read more fiction."

Sarah picked up her coat. "I'm going out to see my editor."

"Mary Shelley, now there was a writer ahead of her time. Ahead of your time. I think it's another hundred years before…," the Doctor went on.

"If your going to hide in my flat, you could at least clean up around here," Sarah interrupted, pretending to be ignoring the Doctor.

"What do you say to paying her a visit? Or her mother," he tempted, flashing a smile and knowing that he had her attention.

Not giving in, Sarah smiled. "As tempting as that is, nobody who is already dead is exactly going anywhere, are they. It can wait."

"And I want you to answer the phone if it rings, and if it's UNIT _you_ can explain to them about why you're not there," Sarah continued.

"Charles Dickens. I've always wanted to meet Charles Dickens," the Doctor announced. "I'm not entirely sure why I haven't."

"And if it's my Aunt Lavinia, tell her I'm still in Greece," she added as she left.

\---

The editor of the Metropolitan was a loud man and incapable of sitting still for even a moment. He paced back and forth behind his desk as he spoke of the reasons why Sarah should take the assignment he had given to her.

"I let your roam about and follow your own leads and all I get is articles that push all the boundaries of believability which I would tell you are better suited for a science fiction journal if they weren't always followed in quick succession by a particularly threatening letter from the Ministry of Defence."

"Exactly!" Sarah exclaimed. "Let me out on a hunch. I know where to look."

"Which is brilliant, Sarah that really is, you've got a nose for it. But I can't _print_ something bared by the Official Secrets Act, now can I? And unprintable stories don't fill pages and certainly don't sell magazines."

"But a county show is not news. It's not journalism – it's fluff, and quite frankly…"

"Quite frankly, Sarah, your disappearances and reappearances of late and the fact you've had nothing printed in six months means you're not a in a position to complain."

Sarah was left in stunned silence. She knew she had been a bit difficult and unreliable since meeting the Doctor, but to have her career summarised in such a manner by her editor was frightening.

"Go, meet the people, take Harry to get some photos of vegetables and write some thinly veiled disparaging remarks and then our readers can admire the countryside and thank the heavens they don't live there at the same time," he continued. "Human interest. That's what they want."

"Fine," Sarah replied with resignation.

\---

It was finding the Doctor waiting outside her door that made Sarah worry.

"What happened?"

"I cleaned," he said with a grin. Sarah wondered what on earth possessed her to make such a request. She rushed into her flat dreading what she would find, only to discover that all her walls were all still in place, there were no aliens milling about (besides the Doctor, of course) and no evidence of some kind of experiment gone wrong. Instead her books lined up on shelves against the wall. The Doctor had actually cleaned.

"Oh, it's lovely. Thank you." Sarah had never thought she would see the day when the Doctor would use his screwdriver for actual DIY.

"Those aren't real screws, are they?" She added after admiring his handiwork for a moment.

"What else would they be?"

"Which would mean that those are real holes in my walls." Sarah hung her head in exasperation. "My landlord's going to kill me."

"They won't let you place screws in your own wall."

"It's not _my_ wall. That's the whole point. If I owned this place I'd never have to spend any time here," she replied, realising just how strange that sounded.

"Well how about we forget your landlord and get away. I know of a planet that's entirely orange, populated with five legged cat-like creatures called the Itteen. They're a sarcastic species but quite easy to like, unless you play them at poker."

"Or," Sarah suggested was false eagerness, "We could go to the annual Flydale North Agricultural Show. Do you know they have record of their winners in categories dating back two-hundred and fifty years?"

The Doctor gave her a look as if he was assessing whether she had recently been hypnotised.

"Or stay right here and just move about in time, bring you to the Dinosaurs rather than them to you," he said.

"Yes, but the Flydale show has preserves and livestock and is steeped in quaint small town tradition and history," Sarah replied, feeling like a tourist brochure. "Though more importatantly, I can earn money and see my name in print."

"Money?"

"Yes, if I write an article about it, I can get paid. If get paid, I can pay my rent. If pay my rent and we can leave and go anywhere in the universe. I just have to write this one article."

"The plains of Sistine, where flowers made out of red glass grow like weeds," the Doctor announced, seeming not to have been listening to her.

"Come on, Doctor, this was our agreement," Sarah stressed. "We stop on Earth, just for a couple of days so I can earn some money and see my name in print and then we go back off. So far it's only been six hours, and you've been restless the entire time. You're not exactly making this easy."

"I suppose I may find something interesting at a show."

"That's the spirit."

\---

"Stop cringing, will you. It's distracting."

"We wouldn't want that."

"There's nothing wrong with my driving."

"We could have taken the TARDIS."

"And visit Charles the First along the way."

"I don't think he'd be very pleased to see me."

"Well, Harry's meeting us there anyway, so we can't be late."

"Harry Sullivan? He's agreed to come?"

"Harry Sullivan would be duty bound to inform the Brigadier that you are in fact on this planet. It's Harry Lambert. He's a photographer with the Metro."

"A new Harry. That could be just what we need."

\---

The Flydale North Agricultural Show was as Sarah expected: filled to the brim with sheep, sponges and sexagenarians. Everybody there was friendly enough, and some were rather enthusiastic about having a reporter from London covering their traditional show and to Sarah's relief, the Doctor has even found something worth investigating before the welcoming party arrived.

"I'm Sarah Jane Smith, this is Harry Lambert, my photographer, and that there...Well that's John Smith," Sarah said, as she watched the Doctor inspect some containers of jam.

"Your husband?" a patron asked.

"My assistant," Sarah replied, hoping to get a rise from the Doctor or a look of horror from some scandalised old biddy that was still against the prospect of women being able to vote, but the Doctor was out of earshot and nobody seemed to mind. Sarah decided her day was going to be even duller than she had initially thought.

The Doctor wandered off, and Harry with him. Sarah was listening to a Mrs Jones ramble on about her wonderful daughter that worked in the city, when the Doctor and Harry found her again.

"There is produce here much larger than it should be given the gravity of this planet and soil conditions of the area," he announced. "Far, far too large."

"That would be the Stevensons' produce. That farm's produce has been that size for twenty years now," replied Mrs. Jones who had apparently been listening. "Won national records."

"Tell me," the Doctor asked, "has there ever been any meteor activity in the area?"

"You know, every now and again something that happens on this planet doesn't have an alien conspiracy at the centre of it," Sarah whispered to the Doctor.

"Why, yes, about twenty years ago. I remember going out with my husband and watching. You don't think the two are connected do you?" Mrs Jones asked.

"You're a very sharp woman, Mrs. Jones," the Doctor replied.

"What's he on about?" Harry asked Sarah as the Doctor wandered off again.

"Oh, he does that. Would you please go after him and humour him," Sarah asked. "And don't let him destroy anything."

\---

Harry Lambert was about as happy as Sarah Jane with having to cover an agricultural show. Still, he had one thing going for him, being the photographer meant he wasn't stuck interviewing and was instead free run after the most interesting thing he could find, which just happened to be John Smith. Harry was trying to decide whether he was merely eccentric or a raging lunatic.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked once he found the John. Smith was holding up an old looking metal stick one of the Stevenson's large cabbages the size of settee "And what is that?"

"A sonic screwdriver," the John Smith said with a grin, and moving and doing the same to a carrot the size of a Labrador.

Lunatic, Harry decided.

"You see, Harry. Should the size of these vegetables be in fact a result of the influence of a meteor of Hartatorvian origin, they will have a reaction to sonic disruption," he said, holding out his screwdriver. "They'll turn purple," he said with a big grin.

"Really," Harry replied, half-heartedly. He did not expect John Smith's 'screwdriver' to achieve anything, and was not at all surprised when nothing happened. The cabbage just sat there, as it has been before, a lifeless and green vegetable.

"Though it could be a meteor from Thandinon Bravo, much rarer."

"And if it is?" Harry asked. Harry at this point was focusing less on the Smith's activities and was instead considering whether he should have a talk with Sarah about bringing mentally unstable relatives with her to work.

"It couldn't be that…" Smith replied trailing off, suddenly looking rather worried. "If it were, with the influence of sonic disruption we'd end up with a very primitive but very angry form of sentient life."

\---

"Sarah."

"Doctor, not right now, I'm a bit busy interviewing Mrs. Young here."

"Sarah, there's a gigantic cabbage."

"Yes, I know."

"And it's trying to eat people."

"What!?"

"Of course, it's not being very successful. It lacks bite."

"Doctor!"

"Same can't be said for the carrot."

Sarah buried her head in her hands for a moment, groaned and followed him out to where people had begun to scream.

\---

"Cheer up, Harry," the Doctor said as he pulled a lettuce leaf out of Sarah's hair. "Now if Sarah here had a pound for every time she's been attacked by vegetation…"

"…We wouldn't have been here in the first place," Sarah finished while wiping jam of the Doctor's back.

"Nutters! Bloody lunatics! Not just you," he yelled pointing at the Doctor, "but the pair of you!"

With that, Harry stormed off.

Sarah and the Doctor looked to each other and then at the carnage surrounding them: livestock wandered through the mess of overturned stalls with the occasional horse stopping to munch on a cabbage leaf and around them stood a crowd of rather shocked but nevertheless whole show patrons and farmers, all, like Sarah and the Doctor, covered head to toe in the remains of the fair.

The scene was disrupted by a red-faced police officer rushing towards them through the crowd, baton drawn and with what looked like sponge and cream on his helmet.

"You two, come with me!"

"I think he thinks we're responsible," the Doctor whispered.

"Odd, considering you are."

"I don't know what you two did, but I won't rest until you've paid for this!" the Police officer yelled. "Hands where I can see them!"

The pair of them placed their hands in the air. Sarah leaned over to the Doctor. "I think that now's a good time for you to let the Brigadier know of your whereabouts, don't you?"

\---

Sitting in the cell of the Flydale police station, Sarah leaned against the walls and glared at the Doctor. In return he grinned.

"I can't take you anywhere," she moaned. "It was a simple assignment: interview a few old ladies and write up a piece. Instead I've been terrorised and chased by vegetables, called a lunatic by a co-worker and now locked up." To Sarah this was all becoming rather familiar, though nobody had yet tried to torture her, or hypnotise her, so she supposed on the whole, it would not be that bad if it weren't for the fact she was on her own planet and in her own time and an incident such as destroying a fair while on the job was sure to follow her around.

There was a long silence in which neither said anything.

It was the Doctor who finally spoke. "I have to say, new Harry was useless."

"Yes, I much prefer old Harry," she replied, sitting down next to him. "Though the look on his face," she added, beginning to giggle.

"You'd think he'd never been attacked by a carrot before," the Doctor added.

The pair of them burst into laughter

"Quiet you two!" the same police officer from the fair roared. The silence lasted a whole five seconds before his two prisoners burst into giggles once more.

\---

"It's a fluff piece," Sarah's editor pointed out.

"That's what you wanted."

"No…Yes," he corrected himself quickly. "But that was before things happened – I've heard news of some kind of stampede destroying everything. Where's that? All you've got is cows and preserves and a please-dear-God-kill-me-if-I-can-ever-have-to-discus-Victoria-Sponges-again-in-my-life attitude."

"Well, the…er…Official Secrets Act forbids me from disclosing what actually took place at the Flydale Show," Sarah replied sheepishly.

This time it was her editor that found himself in stunned silence.

"How on earth do you do it!?" he finally managed to sputter out.

"I'm very sorry, but, I'm afraid, I can't tell you that either."

\---

"How was the Brigadier?" Sarah asked as she wandered in her flat.

"As you would imagine. Not particularly pleased with you either."

She gave the Doctor a small smile.

"Alright, so in two days on Earth we've - no you've - destroyed the Flydale North show and quite possibly my career. On the other hand, at least I have some shelves, even though I can never let my landlord in my flat again."

"I'm sure it's not that bad."

"Possibly…Oh, it's getting printed, I'm getting paid…I suppose…." Sarah let the sentence drift off, thinking about just what kind of steps she would have to take to salvage her relationship with the Metropolitan.

"You seem to mind."

"Mind? Of course I mind!" Sarah replied, every ounce of frustration at the Doctor suddenly coming out. She knew he didn't mean to be so difficult, but she was sure he purposely made an effort not to understand her perspective sometimes.

"This is my home and that's my job. It's always fine for you, never needing proper employment and having the TARDIS always with you like a caravan. But I'm a human and a journalist and this is my home, Doctor. Do you know what will happen to my things if I get evicted? Or my career if I don't write anything for months on end?"

"I'm sorry, Sarah." The Doctor seemed quite earnest.

"And do you think for even a minute I wouldn't rather be out there, exploring the universe with you than writing some boring piece on a show?" she finished.

"I know," he said softly.

Sarah flopped down into the nearest chair. "Where to next then?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know," the Doctor replied thoughtfully. Sarah looked at him to find his expression unreadable. Something was definitely going on beneath those curls of his, but she did not know what.

"You promised me an orange planet populated with blue five-legged cat-like creatures," she said.

"I did?"

"Yes, you did. And then we are going to visit Mary Wollstonecraft, and that planet with the glass weeds. And what about going to South America? I've never been."

The Doctor stood up and headed for the TARDIS. "We had better get going then, hadn't we?" he answered. Sarah smiled and followed.


End file.
